Mistyfan’s 500th Post!

Yes, I have now reached another milestone – my 500th post. To commemorate, I am going to do something I have not done before on this post – look back on what I have done and why, and hear your suggestions on what I could do for this blog in the future.

As Comixminx has commented on, I am the more prolific contributor to this blog, and it is because of this that the blog has expanded at the rate it has. Far more Jinty stories have been covered than they otherwise would have, and I have helped keep the blog active. It has been largely through my efforts that the blog has expanded into non-Jinty subjects as well, to provide context and to keep the blog expanding as more and more Jinty gaps are filled and Jinty material begins to run out.

I believe this stems from how I used to read the girls’ comics. Although I was a Tammy reader I loved to pick up and glance through other girls’ titles that were on display at the shops (Girl II, Bunty, Tracy, Jinty, Debbie, Suzy etc). Budget and space prevented me from actually buying them. It was not just girls’ titles either. I enjoyed glancing through the funnies too, and in particular liked to follow the Leopardman in Buster. Looking at those same shelves now, I can see how times have changed. Instead of a wide range of newsprint comics that were cheap enough to fit into most amounts of pocket money or provide an instant library to quickly flick through, there is nothing but pink girly gloss wrapped in plastic that hardly has so much as a photo story now, and is way more expensive.

My first Tammys, Debbies, Mandys, Buntys, Jintys and Mistys came from school fairs and such. The earliest were ones that somehow appeared in my house and I liked the look of them. Ones I remember included the first episode of “Battle of the Wills”. So I started looking out for those comics myself. So as you see, I was not confined to one title. I was familiar with a wide range of them, and I believe that this broad familiarity is why my non-Jinty contributions to this blog are in a far greater number. In fact, it is why some of them, such as as “Slaves of the Nightmare Factory“, are here at all. But it was not until much later in life that I started actual collections. For space and money reasons I have to limit my titles.

Some titles I have addressed on this blog are ones I came across later in life. For example, I had never heard of “Scream!” until I found some back issues in a second hand book shop, decided to buy them, and liked them once I got them home and read them. Several of my other entries on this blog were prompted by what others have posted on the Internet. For example, my entry on “They Call Me a Coward!” started with the Great News for All Readers posting a June entry featuring the story on the cover. I was immediately struck by how the story sounded similar to “Waves of Fear” and I instantly wanted to track it down. In a similar vein, my entry on “The Terror Behind the Bamboo Curtain” started with Pat Mills mentioning it on an online interview. And some of my other entries, such as my Commando entries, were prompted by me wanting to contribute something different. That was how my Commando entries started, but now they are reflecting how Commando itself is changing from having exclusively male protagonists to having a more female presence in some issues.

Once Comixminx raised the subject of OuBaPo on this blog I was off, and I was aided by having some knowledge of Photoshop and drawing comics. I have taken OuBaPo on dimensions on this blog that included parodying girls’ comics, and much inspiration has come from another of my favourite titles – Mad Magazine.

For the future, is there anything in particular you would like to see? For example, what remaining Jinty stories would you like Comixminx and me to cover? Tearaway Trisha, Blind Faith, Child of the Rain, Waking Nightmare, Horse from the Sea, Miss No-Name, Two Mothers for Maggie and Destiny Brown are some of the Jinty stories we have not covered yet. Is there anything in the non-Jinty range you want to see? Perhaps you have any suggestions for new types of OuBaPo? Or do you have any new ideas or suggestions for the blog? Please let us know. Meantime, I am turning back to “Scream!” entries.

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5 thoughts on “Mistyfan’s 500th Post!”

Congratulations on your 500th post. I think you cover such a varied amount of work and it’s nice to see you expand from Jinty. I enjoyed your recent top 10 posts and in the past I’ve enjoyed the story theme summaries, would be nice to see more of those different type of posts, along side the stories summaries

Speaking as a slightly older reader I must admit to a special interest in the girls’ and boys’ comics that were around in the late 1950s and early 1960s when I was growing up. As a result I’d love to see you or Comixminx having a look at odd issues of Girl, School Friend, Diana, Lady Penelope or Princess from time to time. Of course I realize that most of these titles were a bit before your time but I’d be intrigued to know how they seem to comic readers from a later generation.

I really liked hearing more about your comics-reading background and interests, and how these have driven your contributions to the blog. I think this sort of thing is always going to be interesting to me, as giving context to how you read and how you think about the comics you read.

I think that when we can, we should go back to fill in some of the gaps of Jinty stories we haven’t yet got to but I am aware I haven’t been able to do hardly anything recently for various personal time-based reasons. However I am writing something about Heroes which I will aim to post shortly.